This article has been edited to clarify that the strike set for Jan. 21 is only expected to be for one day.

Members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association staged an information picket in front of Holy Trinity Secondary School on Monday afternoon, after negotiations with the province stalled last week.

As soon as classes were done for the day, a group of about a dozen teachers gathered at the edge of school property and began handing out flyers to people as they waited in line for a chance to turn onto Tyotown Road.

Aside from the picket at the end of the school day, teachers at local English Catholic schools are also working-to-rule, which means they will only perform duties explicitly laid out in their job descriptions.

Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario is expecting its teachers to stage a one-day strike Jan. 21, unless progress is made in negotiations.

Despite holding a demonstration meant to get the union’s message out to as many people as possible, the union representative onsite declined to be interviewed.

This is just the beginning unless there is a breakthrough in deadlocked contract negotiations.

High school teachers within the Upper Canada District School Board will be on a one-day walkout this Wednesday if their contract is not resolved. It’s the latest in weekly one-day walkouts at different boards across the province.

The union for English public elementary teachers warns it will begin rotating strikes across the province on Jan. 20. Teachers at French-language schools appear set to withdraw some services on Thursday. If that goes ahead, all four education unions now bargaining on behalf of about 200,000 employees in the province’s schools would be engaged in job actions.

The unions say they will not back down from what they characterize as a fight to save public education from a government intent on increasing class sizes, introducing mandatory online courses in high schools and eroding support for high-needs students.

They also want a pay raise equal to the cost of living, which Education Minister Stephen Lecce insists is the sticking point in disputes he said are marked by irresponsible union escalation. He likes to flip around a phrase often used by his critics — “education cuts hurt kids” — to say that “strikes hurt kids.”

Lecce said the government has been reasonable, scaling back class size increases and reducing the number of mandatory online courses. He said he is fighting to “keep kids in class.

“It is most concerning that teacher unions leaders disagree and continue to impede learning for the next generation,” he said in a statement.

Both sides are also ramping up their campaigns for public support with events like the one seen in Cornwall. The four education unions took out full-page ads in a number of publications across Ontario on Saturday, saying proposed changes by the Doug Ford government are having a “profoundly negative impact on Ontario’s world-class education system.”